COLLEGE STUDENT TELLS OFF SENATOR

Not too long ago, I blogged on the students who handed a letter of condemnation to Bush as he awarded them for being outstandingly smart students (how's that for irony?). This jogged my memory and when recently digging through some old bookmarks, I found the story it had reminded me of. The story of Jean Sarah Rohe.

Jean Sarah Rohe was a student selected to speak at graduation. Why is that important? Well, it's because "straight-talker," Bush-lapdog, and former hero of mine, John McCain was delivering the commencement address. Rohe, who spoke before McCain did, was able to pre-emptively tear McCain a new one because he had announced that he'd be giving the same speech at every graduation he spoke at that year. Pretty awesomely stupid, huh?

Well, it wouldn't be the first time McCain would step in it big time.

Thanks to that stepping she was able to say a few things that really zinged him. Here's what NYTimes.com [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/20/nyregion/20mccain.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print|quoted her as saying], in part,:

"Senator McCain will also tell us about his strong-headed self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others, and in so doing he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions.

"I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that pre-emptive war is dangerous and wrong," she said.

She added, "Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction."

Nice!

Now, all this happened back in May of 2006 and about the only trace of the event I could find in the blogosphere was [http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/05/20/mccain-gets-an-earful/|this May 20, 2006 post] at FireDogLake.com (though I did find [http://log.amerikalog.com/?p=1482|this German-language blog that posted on it] ). FDL seems like a pretty brainwashed site as they finish their post on Rohe by saying "Had enough? Vote for oversight — vote for Democrats."

What a laugh that is. On the site's main page they also hawk for Yearly Kos, an event run by DailyKos.com, a site that, from what I've heard, no longer lets Cindy Sheehan blog there because she's been bagging on the Democrats.

Lovely, these people. They blog on Rohe and fail to get the moral to learn from Rohe's actions that day back in 2006. Spot what is wrong and speak the hell out against it. You come face to face with someone who is doing something wrong? Tell them to their face. Who cares which party they are? TELL THEM.

These morons who put party-loyalty in front of country-loyalty miss the most important issue--that both parties are corrupt which ultimately leaves the wolves minding the hen-house.

I can't be the only person who sees this. From the size of her balls, it sounds like Jean Sarah Rohe understands this. Well, I hope she does, anyway. .

LEGAL FOR COPS TO WARRANTLY TRACK CLUELESS YOU

Back in February of this year, I came across [http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/04/court-rules-that-sly-gps-tracking-isnt-unlawful/|this post] at Engadget.com that reported on a court case that had determined the legality of a cop secretly dropping a GPS unit into a suspects car. The problem with this? The cop had no warrant.

But, apparently, it's AOK for a cop to follow a person without a warrant, effectively searching his life for evidence of wrong-doing, like you'd normally need a warrant to search a house. Let me let a cutting from the above-linked Engadget post explain it more:

Earlier this month, the Seventh Circuit of the US Court of Appeals "ruled against a defendant who claimed that the surreptitious placement of a GPS tracking device amounted to an unconstitutional search," essentially giving the coppers the green light to add a GPS module to a suspicious ride sans a warrant. While we're sure the privacy advocates out there are screaming bloody murder, the district judge found that they had had a "reasonable suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity," and it seems that a well-placed hunch is all they need for lawful placement.

I'm kinda glad I don't have a car now. And if cops hid a GPS device on me, I'd probably find it. :)

See what happens when we go to war with a concept? We get these silly abuses of power. Seriously, what's wrong with a cop just tailing someone? I don't think you need that for a warrant. Giving cops God-like powers to conjure your location from a little box seems like we're giving them the ability to seriously abuse their powers. .

Listening to the Bourne Ultima...

Listening to the Bourne Ultimatum soundtrack--man, John Powell composes a damn good action score!! Makes me want to start a new script!

ThePete.Com Year X Design v2

OK, so, my original thought for the Year X design was going to be really hip and cool and based on the iTheme design from ndesign-studio.com but alas, things got way too complicated. Mainly, it seems like each one of us designs our CSS differently and well, I couldn't work his out. SO, I went uber-basic with the Basic 1.0 theme from Ron "eclip5e" Adams. Alas, that was just too basic for my needs, so you have before you the latest work in progress. Thoughts?

TheChanges on ThePete.Com are ...

TheChanges on ThePete.Com are actually coming along! I've got TheQuickies displaying differently and I'm trying to do the same w/my tweets!

FOUR COPS, TWO COLLEGE KIDS, COMPLETE FUTILITY

It was going to be a quiet night at home, this evening. TheWife was at a rehearsal and while I felt like going out, my finances are a little tight, so I was comfortable with staying in. Then there was a blackout. After 45 minutes of waiting for the power to come back on I gave up and started walking down to the Village and my favorite Internet Cafe, Boba Loca. Along the way I see a cop car circling a block twice. Then I take a left onto Strathmore (just up from Gayley) and find four cop cars surrounding a single car (it was dark, so I couldn't tell the color, make or model, but it was sporty). They had the driver out, on his knees with his hands on his head. Two other cops held shotguns and pointed them at the car or the driver. They pulled the driver up and put him and then the passenger in the cop car. They searched the car (mainly the trunk) for 30 minutes and finally let the kids go. The driver was black.

Using a Sony USB Walkman on an OSX MAC Without SonicStage!

So, if you want to skip past the back story (BASTARD!) click here to get to the good bits of how to run your Sony Walkman USB mp3 player without SonicStage even on a Mac!

So, last weekend I was at Fry's Electronics up in Canoga Park picking up some parts for my various projects. Fry's Electronics, for the non-initiated, is a supermarket for gearheads like me. I grew up loving electronics and to a certain extent, monkeying around with my own electronics. I was a hardware hacker before there was a popular term for it. When I moved to LA back int he 90s and found Fry's it kinda changed my life. When I'm low on cash and can't afford to go to Six Flags or DisneyLand, I'll go to Fry's and just window shop. It's a wonderland.

So, I'm there last weekend and of course, I have to look at all the cheapy, cut-rate media players they have there. Stuff that plays bizarrely formatted videos and mp3s for insanely cheap--you can get a 1gb video player for about $40. Of course, the picture quality is likely crap. To a gadgethound like me, it's the thought that counts. Once I get some steady income again, I think I might be adding one or two cheap video players to some custom toy projects I'm working on.

ANYway... (hey, I didn't start a paragraph with "So,"!) As I'm scoping the cheap crap I spot an older Sony Walkman e003f USB stick that plays mp3s and has an FM tuner. Listing for $60, it was on sale for $40. I seriously considered getting it. I knew Sony players aren't Mac-friendly, but I found myself becoming wistful (listful?) for my early days of carrying around Sony Walkmans as the original audio lockpick to my imagination. I couldn't help but think how cool it would be to have the Walkman name in my pocket again and for cheaper than any price I'd paid previously.

I knew my temp gig was ending and that I'd have to watch my funds, so I didn't get it. Coincidentally, I hadn't found the parts I needed, so I dropped $5 on a 2-pack of USB swivel plugs and headed home.

This whole week that Sony Walkman USB stick haunted me. It was 1 gig, flash-based (obviously), a huge battery life (20+hours!) and it was so slick looking with a little OLED screen (something neither my 1g iPod Shuffle or my 2g iPod Shuffle Boot has). Then I realized I hadn't found the parts I needed. Still, my job ended and while I had the money to drop $40+ on the e003f and my parts, I kept thinking that I should save my money since I have no definite temp job coming up.

Then, I finished a HUGE script I'd been working on since early June. It was such an immense achievement for me (212 pages in two months is pretty damn prolific!) so I decided to screw it and spring for the Walkman stick. ^_^

Of course, it's not compatible with Macs and even on Windows machines you can only use SonicStage (which I've read SUCKS but is being discontinued), so that presented a problem. However, while I'm not a software guy, I knew from my experiences finding software for my various hardware projects that I'd be able to find something that would let me dump mp3s on my new Walkman stick.

So, after a good bit of Googling and tech-forum-diving, I was able to find [http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=174319|NW-E00x Mp3 File Manager] which you can read more about here: http://nwe00xmp3man.sourceforge.net/

For now, I'll tell you that it's a Java app (so it'll run on any platform that supports Java) and it runs directly from your Walkman stick. I couldn't get the latest version of it to work because Java.com doesn't have Java SE6 (required by 0.13--the latest version of NW-E00x Mp3 File Manager) but I DLed 0.12 and it worked fine. So, if you want a super cheap, high-quality mp3 player with FM built-in and a few other neat features (equalizer, workout stopwatch, etc) get your ass to Fry's and grab the silver Sony Walkman NW-e003f for $40 before they sell out because now you can use them WITHOUT SONICSTAGE.

Now if Sony can just get it's head out of it's ass and start doing things like supporting Macs, ditching UMDs and Memory Sticks, cut the PS3 price to something reasonable, stop hiring Sam Raimi to make shitty Spider-Man movies, and firing that white guy who is ruining things for them.

CONGRESS SEZ BIG BROTHER IS OK WITH US!

I usually try to keep things light on the weekend, but my friend Morgan IMed me a link to [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070804/ap_on_go_pr_wh/terrorism_surveillance|this August 4, 2007 article] from AP.org available at News.Yahoo.com that reports on some pretty depressing stuff. Remember that old parable about the priest during WWII Germany? You know, where they came for the Jews and I didn't protest, they came for the gays, and I didn't protest, they came for the dissidents and I did not protest. Finally, when they came for me, there was no one left to protest.

Well, Congress now appears to be the priest in the story. Check out this cutting:

The Senate, in a high-stakes showdown over national security, voted late Friday to temporarily give President Bush expanded authority to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists without court warrants. The House, meanwhile, rejected a Democratic version of the bill.

Democratic leaders there were working on a plan to bring up the Senate-passed measure and vote on it Saturday in response to Bush's demand that Congress give him expanded powers before leaving for vacation this weekend.

The White House applauded the Senate vote and urged the House to quickly follow suit.

These guys couldn't be bothered to impeach Bush and Cheney when they broke the law over illegal surveillance issues and now they give him the power to do what he did without breaking the law?

It seems like the growing pressure from us citizens has pushed Congress into pushing back.

This is getting to be just like that time, back in 1800s, where a good chunk of America decided the Federal Government was getting too big for its britches and in accordance with the Declaration of Independence seceded from the Union. See, in the Declaration of Independence it actually says that (and I'm paraphrasing) every once in a while a government may get abusive with it's powers and when that happens We The People can either alter or abolish that. Of course, when the South tried to do that in the 1800s, the North didn't let it.

Flash forward a hundred-and-some-years later and Congress won't let us push for impeachment. We push and they give the Executive Branch more power to spy on us. It's a classic threat--keep pushing for impeachment and we'll spy on you just enough to find SOMEthing you're doing and trump it up enough to make your life miserable.

Whether you believe the threat thing or not, the fact is that Congress is letting us down yet again--giving Bush more power instead of less.

So, they've made illegal domestic spying legal, what's next? Legally changing the name of the Executive Branch to the Imperial Branch?

Anything is "legal" after you pass a law to make it so.

SUNLIGHT FOUNDATION IS A GOOD DISINFECTANT

Here's another one I cam across while digging through some old bookmarks: SunlightFoundation.com. I think I first heard of them on the podcast from DemocracyNow.org. Essentially, SunlightFoundation.com believes in the semi-old adage "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." In other words, the more in the open government is, the more they'll be unable to do nefarious things.

That's my new favorite word for describing politicians and world leaders these days. I suppose I should look it up just to make sure it adequate fits, but I just got tired of resisting the urge to call them all "evil" since I don't believe in a real concept of evil, just degrees. So, I substitute "corrupt" for "evil" and that works well--until you're bored of it. Besides, "nefarious" has a much more devious feel to it.

ANYway, so the site seems to do a pretty good job of covering government and what they're up to. Sadly, they seem a bit too mired in the small stuff, here's a sampling of some of their recent stories:

Is There More Backsliding on Earmark Reform?

Visualizing Correspondence

Benefits in Admitting Failures

Debates 2.0

More Observations on Legislation 2.0

Legislation Web 2.0 Style

House Moves to Limit Family Business

Backsliding on Earmark Reform?

Those are just the last couple-handfuls of headlines. Yes, they do seem to be a bit obsessed with earmark reform.

So, as you can see, they're not exactly yelling "IMPEACH" or even "INVESTIGATE 911" or even "TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ", but their posts do seem interesting, just not terribly confidence-building. I could be wrong--why not check out SunlightFoundation.com and get illuminated yourself?

FLORIDA BALLOT MACHINES STILL SCREWED

Hey, you're old enough to remember the mess that was the 2000 presidential election? How Florida's vote was so screwy that really, to this day, we're not 100% sure (or even 80% sure) if Bush really won? Well, in 2004, for the next presidential election, the state of Florida decided they'd update a bit and use the electronic ballot boxes a bit. Well, it turns out, that didn't go so well either and now with 2008 around the corner somebody decided to test out the electronic ballot boxes again, to see if the new ones worked well... or at all.

As it turns out, they didn't.

The following cutting comes from [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/31/AR2007073101027.html|a July 31, 2007 article] from AP.org available at WashingtonPost.com and reports all about it this lovely story:

Florida's optical scan voting machines are still flawed, despite efforts to fix them, and they could allow poll workers to tamper with the election results, according to a government-ordered study obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

At the request of Secretary of State Kurt Browning, a Florida State University information technology laboratory went over a list of previously discovered flaws to see if the machines were still vulnerable to attack.

"While the vendor has fixed many of these flaws, many important vulnerabilities remain unaddressed," the report said.

The lab found, for example, that someone with only brief access to a machine could replace a memory card with one preprogramed to read one candidate's votes as counting for another, essentially switching the candidates and showing the loser winning in that precinct.

Oh it goes on, but I won't.

The whole idea of electronic machines being hack-proof is absurd.